User blog:1 (New York City Subway service)/On IRC, Spies are Free
Sarah Charlton. That was her name. She'd vanished from #codes on irc.virt.net the day after they'd promised to meet in Tokyo. To be fair, that was kind of Michael's fault. No one could resist the temptation of these sirens on tracks. Not trainhopping while you were in the VirtNet's version of Tokyo was like not swimming while you were at the beach. Michael joined the legion of young boys that hitched precarious rides on trains running on elevated lines, and then slunk quietly into the suburbs by obscure commuter lines, coming to rest inside trainyards. He was lulled to sleep by the clanking serenade of trains roosting for the night—commuters and people who were trying to do their jobs be damned—before Lifting to the drudgery of the real world. Oh, well. "Six degrees of separation", as they say. Michael could never find his city on a map, being that he didn't actually have any friends there or feel any emotional connection to it. He did know that the woods a few hours away used to be part of the United States, and was a state called Alaska, but his city was in Canada. It was complicated. He recalled dim impressions of his history textbooks speaking of the "Pacific Northwest Party" telling climate migrants to "go back to California." After a few days of asking everyone he knew he found a guy who was an officer in SVES - Shanghai VirtNet Enhancement Society, a club of serious VirtNet crackers, that survived on the flimsiest of legal fictions largely because nobody could figure out whose laws applied to them. The only commonality between its members was that they all lived in the VirtNet's version of Shanghai, and they were all knew their shit. That guy was friendly enough, but wouldn't say anything useful except to try TARBIC - Tokyo Augmented Reality Bending Incorporated Company, a similar group to SVES to which it was affiliated. * mikethespike has joined #tarbic hi nub fucking nubs can we get a kline stfu DantheMan u cunt * DantheMan is taking a piss. hey uh who r u lookin for? Sarah Charlton know that name? hmmm wait y r u helping a nub no nubs here allowed * DantheMan sets mode +b sandgroper * DantheMan has kicked sandgroper (Fuck your shit) Michael sighed. Perhaps he would have to try tomorrow when that Dan guy wasn't here. Tomorrow turned to next week, next week turned to next month. Michael even hacked the VirtNet NerveBox Search API, and couldn't find her anywhere. She was gone. He decided to try again this time next year. Couldn't hurt. what? mike? i've been trying to track you down forever! you and that girl Sarah we met i believe it was 6 months ago Back in Shanghai We were only supposed to hang around for a few days, then she'd move on She was from Atlanta GA, I could tell you this much. Any clues? Sorry bro Nope It was one of these times when you turn your house upside down, sit down on the bed to give up after looking for hours, and find it just sitting on your bed. If anyone was to blame, it was the Transparency in Government Act. A simple search months after he'd given up for old time's sake, and he found a comment on the utah.gov section of the VirtNet, complaining about the roads being too full of potholes. It was strange how the Internet meant you didn't have to smell a person's breath or look at their face to tell if they were worth hanging out, but now with the VirtNet it was back to being self-conscious about your breath or your hair before hanging out with friends. Michael remembered a huge controversy where, at the behest of HallsRicola Candy Inc., upon Sinking into the VirtNet, you were randomized to have an 80% chance of developing bad breath, so you would buy H-R drops in the VirtNet. The joke was that there was no way to hack one out for free because no one who got that deep into cracking the VirtNet cared about oral hygiene. Anyway each government department, state and federal, was required to have a Virtual Complaint Desk in the VirtNet, where all complaints and their disposition were to be made Public Records that could be played back. Ostensibly to preserve privacy the Public Records would be in the hands of VirtNet Security, and unless specially authorized you would only receive a summary of their pertinent portions, but that didn't stop Michael. He was in the corner of a virtual office with posters all along the walls extolling "Utah's Sights and Sounds". He scanned the crowd attentively. Was it really necessary to simulate lining up? And he heard a voice. Yes, it was unmistakable-- "I don't know why you people don't fix the roads. There are so many potholes." Sarah! Her voice came through like a wind chime even over all the other chatter. Michael could hardly be restrained from jumping for joy. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but we will look into it." With that, she Lifted out of the office. The simulation ended with an image of a beehive and: "YOU ARE NOTIFIED THAT BY THE STATE OF UTAH VIRTUAL REALITY ACT OF 2052 (UTAH CODE CH. 17-4) IT IS A CLASS B FELONY TO IMPERSONATE ANY STATE, FEDERAL, OR GLOBAL OFFICIAL ON ANY VIRTUAL NETWORK OPERATED BY OR LOCATED WITHIN THE STATE OF UTAH. "VIRTUAL NETWORK" IS DEFINED AS ANY SIMULATION, SYSTEM, OR OTHER MECHANISM BY WHICH AN IMPRESSION SIMILAR TO OR INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM REALITY IS MADE IN A REASONABLE PERSON." Well, even if Utah cops were coming for him, it was too late. Then, the infinitely more menacing badge of the VNS: the sword and thunderbolt, appeared, with the notice, "ACCESS DENIED BY VNS. DO NOT DO ANYTHING OR MOVE ANYWHERE UNTIL EXPLICIT DIRECTIONS ARE GIVEN. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR VIOLATION OF UTAH CODE SEC. 17-4-214, 2069 ED." That was it! He'd done what all the regulars in #codes made fun of, not use an AuraMask! But somehow, somewhere, he knew he could sneak out. After all, the wall wasn't very strict, and he could still get his EarCuff out of his pocket and use his NetScreen. Alright, so this is an isolated network. But there isn't a firewall blocking connections to the outside. If I could get the word out... He pulled his tinny savior out of his pocket and mounted it upon his ear. By pressing it he saw a hologram displayed in front: the NetScreen. But before he could type anything, there was a blinding flash of light, and then, SARAH! "What are you doing snooping through my beeswax?" Sarah asked. "Is it any business of yours what I spend six hours getting my butt tossed this way and that on?" "No," Michael managed to stammer. "The thought that I'd use IRC," she uttered. "Without SSH? Not bloody likely. I saw you try to look for me--well, parts of it. I'm sure you looked in a lot more places, asked a lot more people." "Sure I did, but..." "How about 'thank you for rescuing my sorry ass?'" Sarah got into Michael's face. "Sure, thank you for rescuing my sorry ass." And that was how they managed to take over the network, connect to the wider VirtNet, and Lift after swapping IRC connection details. "You didn't think of looking elsewhere than irc.virt.net? That's for kiddos, in fact, it's full of VNS spies disrupting conversations." "What?" Michael stared wide-eyed. "Yes, every op there is a VNS agent. They ban random people before they can get too good for the VNS to deal with. Here, try DeepNet, that should be more your style. There's a server key, figure it out and we can talk." Michael lifted back into real life,"the Wake". Michael had just saved himself. He also had about three mountains of homework to do. Category:Blog posts